There's a lot we don't know about Quirrel, which might turn out to make him a good guy, or an interesting guy, or a guy who we ultimately would root for for one reason or another.
Right now, we don't know those things. What we do know is that he killed Rita Skeeter for, as far as we can tell, no good reason. That's one thing we know for sure which Harry specifically doesn't know, and IMO it's enough to assume that (from our perspective) Harry should not be working with Quirrel. Eventually we may learn new things, but for now the disconnect is too great for me.
I do like the interaction between two when it comes to the "battle of wits," as long as its an actual contest and not Harry going along with things that are obviously a bad idea. So far we haven't really seen Harry's response - all he either says or even thinks is "let me think about it." So maybe I'm needlessly worrying. But seeing the first thing Harry do after participating in what was clearly a [i]very bad series of decisions[/i] is to initiate a similar conversation to what led to those decisions in the first place.... it just made me feel really squicky.
after participating in what was clearly a very bad series of decisions
I've heard this a lot. I'm still not sure I agree with it. Harry gained quite a lot from the excursion. A great deal of knowledge about magic, about the politics of the wizarding world, about Quirrel himself. He discovered new uses for the Deathly Hollow, new ways to fight Dementors, and how he functions in life-threatening situations. A lot of practice in problem-solving under intense pressure. And two very powerful wizards now owe him... something? A favor? At any rate, it worked...
Update: Discussion has moved on to a new thread.
After 61 chapters of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and 5 discussion threads with over 500 comments each, HPMOR discussion has graduated from the main page and moved into the Less Wrong discussion section (which seems like a more appropriate location). You can post all of your insights, speculation, and, well, discussion about Eliezer Yudkowsky's Harry Potter fanfic here.
Previous threads are available under the harry_potter tag on the main page (or: one, two, three, four, five); this and future threads will be found under the discussion section tag (since there is a separate tag system for the discussion section). See also the author page for (almost) all things HPMOR, and AdeleneDawner's Author's Notes archive for one thing that the author page is missing.
As a reminder, it's useful to indicate at the start of your comment which chapter you are commenting on. Time passes but your comment stays the same.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: